To Be, or Not to Be

          That is the question mused in Hamlet's soliloquy. Shakespeare's question is ever-fresh because the answer is never clear. Young girls plucking daisies ask, "Does he love me, or, does he not"? Has any young girl ever been satisfied with the answer of the last pedal?

          No, she picks another daisy.

           There is a turn-of-the-century song that asks,
"Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer please". I'm charmed
by the song's metamorphosis of daisy into Daisy, and the possibility that the girl's answer may be as enigmatic as
the flower's answer.
          I like both lyrics and melody, though I think the tempo typically played is much too fast. Typical rendering forces interpretation of the song into a cute ditty of young love. I imagine something darker.

           I think of the story as symbolic of life's ironic uncertainties. Will the courtship of these young lovers - poor though the young man may be - end in bliss or sorrow? Time will have its way. Perhaps the song is the reminiscence of a sorrowful, older man remembering hopeful days long since gone.

           When performed as reminiscence, the words have unexpected gravitas.

           Imagine a black & white movie. The opening scene is silent except for the wistful moan of an autumn wind that pushes empty playground swings into gentle motion.
Dry leaves rustle mindlessly across the bleak ground. The swings glide slowly back and forth.
          A distant music grows hauntingly.
          The melody of a sad song, almost a familiar song, becomes recognizable. It's Daisy's song: A Bicycle-Built-for-Two. A sepulcher vocal sings the familiar words, but the once hopeful words now seem melancholy.

           The camera pans back. An old man, sits alone on
a park bench; he's bundled, coat and hat, against a quiet rain that mists the empty playground in front of him.
          The words of the song conjure flickering images tinted in pale color of a time long gone. A time that is now only memory.

           The pale images come into focus. The pretty girl must be Daisy. The earnest young man holding her hand must be her husband-to-be.
Are the children on the swing the young lover's children, or are they the children the young lovers once hoped for?

           The song ends. The images flicker out.

           Did the "bicycle-built-for-two" carry Daisy
to blissful matrimony, or was it never enough to compete with a "stylish carriage"?

Was their life together, to be, or not to be?

           Ahh - that is the question.









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